In the Mirror
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day 1183: Quinn has been cut off from her whole world since they had to run, but then there's someone here, and it's hard not to remember. - Trinity series


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 56th cycle. Now cycle 57!_

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**"In The Mirror"  
(Older) Quinn/Spencer (OC); Sophia (OC: Nellie V.)  
Trinity series  
_(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)_  
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Quinn would sit outside at night sometimes, on days when the memories of home had blindsided her, and she needed to clear her head before she could go to bed. That day had been one of those.

It was Brittany's birthday.

Somewhere back at the apartment, there would be a box in a bag at the back of her closet which was meant to be her present, and neither of them knew it was there. By now, maybe they would have already gone and cleaned out her room… That thought alone had the potential to break her down, but then so did the thought that they could go on unaware that it was in there. She would have thought it would get easier, being away from them, like it was expected of her… The truth was sometimes it felt like she only missed them more.

She had bowed her head against her knees, breathing deep, in and out… She was so closed in on herself, and her ears had long been trained to pick up on the slightest of sounds, that in that moment something made her ears twinge.

She looked up to see a figure move away from the house across the street, and even in the darkened night, she could recognize the shuffle that told her this was Sophia. Something about this had felt like her alarms should be going off. Before she knew it she had gotten up from the balcony, left the house, and gone tailing after the girl. Falling into skulking mode again was a lot easier than she would have expected, though to go unnoticed by someone like Sophia would be easier than trained guards. She wouldn't go and assume anything, but then… Maybe she was overthinking it, stuck in her funk over missing her friends, but what if she wasn't?

She had walked, keeping her distance behind the girl, for over ten minutes, and it was clear they were not bound for main street, going down residential streets. Now she was fearing she really did get it wrong, and she would have turned around and gone home and forgotten about the whole thing if not for how her demeanor had shifted… Now it looked like Quinn wasn't the only one who was sneaking around.

Sophia had stopped in front of a house. The lights were off, no cars around… Quinn had seen the girl standing calmly behind counters, sitting and reading, singing and playing guitar at the bar… None of that had suggested in any way that she was capable of anything Quinn was about to see. Sophia had gone up and, with a quick scale up the tree out front, was soon going along a branch which would allow her to reach the ledge, stepping to the window. It had taken her little to no time to get it open, and then she'd disappeared into the house.

Quinn was speechless. "It's always the quiet ones…" she mumbled to herself. It took her no more than a few seconds to decide what she would do. After crossing the street, she had come to stand by the tree Sophia had scaled, and she took out her phone. She kept an eye on the open window as she waited.

"Hello?" Sophia whispered, and Quinn frowned.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Allie?" she replied.

"You get out here right now," Quinn spoke in a voice she was shocked to find sounded so very like her mother's when she was upset.

"Out h…" Quinn saw her step into view, phone at her ear, and she hung up, motioning for her to get out. Sophia looked around, then hung up as well. She climbed out of the window, shut it, and crawled up the branch once again before letting go and dropping down before Quinn. "Did you follow me?" she asked, unnerved.

"You know I could have called the cops, but I didn't. So you've got two options here. You can talk to me, or you can talk to them." She still got a glare, and she wasn't entirely sure Sophia wasn't thinking of running off, but then she sighed.

"Can we not do this out there?"

"Start walking," Quinn pointed back the way they'd come from, and Sophia obliged. "So whose house was that?" Quinn asked. She remained silent at first.

"My ex," she announced.

"Your ex," Quinn repeated with a nod. "Whose house was that?" she repeated that as well.

"It doesn't matter," Sophia shook her head.

"You know, this is how it starts. You do something because it seems small, like it's not a big deal and you know you can do it," Quinn spoke as they walked. "And then you want to do something else, maybe a bit more complicated, and you're willing to take the risk because you've succeeded before. You go and you take bigger and bigger risks, and all of a sudden you look back and realize you're doing something you would never have considered doing in the beginning, because you knew how dangerous it was. Only now it doesn't seem so dangerous. You've worked up to it, it's just how things are now," she shrugged.

"Please, it's nothing like that," Sophia scoffed.

"You'd be surprised," Quinn assured her. "What were you going to do in there?"

"Are we going to completely ignore the fact that you followed me here?" Sophia pointed out.

"I saw you go, I was worried about you," Quinn told her. "With good reason, from what I saw. You're a hell of a climber."

"I got bored easy, and I read a lot of books about… adventures," Sophia had to smile.

"Is that what this is?" Quinn asked. "Boredom?" Sophia didn't correct her or object to the suggestion, so maybe she had hit on the truth. "You're a smart girl, why would you risk putting yourself in danger…"

"Why does everyone always have to make such a big deal about it? So I'm smart. When did that get to mean that I had to do everything a certain way, always do right? If I'd known that was what I'd get I would have acted dumber, finished high school when I was supposed to."

"Well I've got good news for you, because that back there was about the stupidest thing I've seen you do," Quinn shook her head, getting another glare. "This wasn't the first time, was it?" she guessed, with Sophia's silence as another wordless admission. "It can't happen again, do you understand?"

"You're not my mother," Sophia sighed.

"Maybe not, but I still care about what happens to you. Next time you get that bored, you just come to me, deal?" she looked at her, and the girl looked back, hesitating. She trusted Quinn, or Allie at least, and seeing as she hadn't called the police on her, maybe there was such a thing as believing she might be speaking the truth.

"I guess I can give it a shot."

"Good," Quinn told her. "You're sleeping over tonight." Sophia blinked.

"You don't need to play prison guard on me…"

"Maybe not, but I'm going to do it anyway."

THE END

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******A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
****In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
************always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!**


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